Language
by Triscribe
Summary: Dick Grayson reads Bill Bryson's "The Mother Tongue". Word play runs rampant, and everyone must duck for cover.


_Wally versus the Affixes_

When the zeta tube announced Robin's arrival, Wally was looking forward to an afternoon of video games and junk food. His expectations took a nosedive, though, when the younger boy walked into the kitchen area with a furrowed brow and muttering something under his breath.

"A, anti, non, un, ir, im, il, and in - but in is inversed when applied to valuable, same with price and less - then there's dis-"

"Dude, would you let the prefix thing go already?" Wally groaned.

"Not until I make sense of them all!"

"There is no making sense of those things. There are rules, but every rule's got an exception or two."

"Argh, I know! And that's just fore-phrases, I've still got to go through the list of hind ones too."

"...Why don't you just call them pre and suffixes?"

"Because I'm not mainstream, remember? If I want to differentiate between the 'fixes, I'll do it my way."

"...Why am I friends with you again?"

* * *

 _Artemis and the Outdated Terms_

"Ah-choo!"

"Artemis?"

"I'm in he- h- ah- _choo!"_

Robin poked his head in the training room, arching an eyebrow as his teammate let loose two more sneezes. "You okay? That was a big fit of sternutation."

"Yeah, I'm fi- wait, what?"

"What what?"

"Fit of stern-something?"

"Sternutation!" Robin grinned. "Means sneezing."

Artemis stared at him flatly. "Then why didn't you just say 'a big fit of sneezing'?"

"Because it's not as fun!" His grin turned into a smirk as she growled. "Ah, come on Arty, I'm just trying to be ruthful here."

" _Ruthful?_ What the heck does that even- No. You know what, never mind. Get over here so we can start sparring."

* * *

 _Kaldur and the Handful of Suffixes_

"Then why use them at all?!" At the exasperated groan, Kaldur paused by the library door. Curious in spite of himself, he entered, and immediately came across Robin grumbling as he glared at several books spread out across the table. Kaldur noted a thesaurus, three different dictionaries, and two notebooks full of meticulously written words.

"Is something wrong, my friend?" The Atlantean asked cautiously.

"Why is it that some hind-phrases are overused while others literally occur twice in the entire English language?"

"...Excuse me?"

Robin sighed, flipping through one of his notebooks and holding it up for Kaldur to see. "Look - these two words here, wedlock and warlock? They're the only two I can find that make use of the ending '-lock'. And here! Hatred and kindred! No other words ending in '-red'! Then there's '-dous', which finishes off jeopardous, hazardous, horrendous, tremendous, and stupendous, BUT DOESN'T SHOW UP ANYWHERE ELSE!" The boy dropped the notebook and grasped at his hair.

Very carefully, Kaldur took hold of his shoulders and steered Robin out of the library. "I think you've been at this for too long."

* * *

 _Conner and the Adjective Forms_

To be fair, Robin was obviously talking only to himself, but Conner still found himself turning slightly to catch the younger teen's words more easily. And then wished he hadn't.

"...thian, labyrinthean, labyrinthal, labyrinthine, labyrinthic, and labyrinthical. Why can't they just say 'like a labyrinth'? Geez, English is crazy..."

Conner found himself agreeing with Robin's final statement. And also tacked on that Robin himself had to be more than a little insane to make such a big study of the expansive language in the first place.

* * *

 _M'gann and the Polysemic Terms_

It started innocently enough, with Robin gaining a thoughtful look as he kept her company in the kitchen. "Hey, M'gann? May I ask you a question?"

"Of course!"

"Why is it, that a door that's bolted is securely shut, while a horse that's bolted is running wild?"

She paused to give him a confused look. "Um... I'm not sure? Why do you ask?"

"Because it's the simplest of the polysemic words I've been studying. The others are all a lot worse."

"Others?"

"Yeah, like 'fine' - it has fourteen definitions as an adjective, six as a noun, and two as an adverb. Then there's 'round', which has twelve uses as an adjective, nineteen as a noun, seven as a transitive verb, five as an intransitive verb, one as an adverb, and two as a preposition."

"Oh."

"The worst one, though, is definitely 'set'. That one, three-letter word has more than fifty-eight uses as a noun, a hundred and twenty-six as a verb, and ten as a participial adjective."

M'gann stared at him.

"I know, it's ridiculous."

The martian girl continued staring.

"And you probably think _I'm_ ridiculous now for knowing all that."

"Well... maybe just a little."

* * *

 _Bruce and the Altered Words_

"Can you pass the sparrow-grass, please?"

Blinking, Bruce Wayne sent his ward a baffled look, to which the boy merely snickered.

"I believe he means the asparagus, sir," Alfred offered as he went to place another dish on the table.

Ignoring both Dick's quiet cackles and his butler's carefully blank expression, Bruce went ahead and picked up the plate of green vegetables to hand to the teen.

 _A/N: I dunno, you lot think I should do more? This is funny to me, but it might be just plain stupid to everyone else..._


End file.
